Qian Xuan’s Scroll of the West Lake
A warm spring day
A hot summer day
The sultry autumn day
The bitter winter
No “chicken” and no “king”
How did the ancient people spend the long days?
The answer is naturally – even without today’s high technology, the ancient people would never let themselves be idle.
Next
Let’s take stock of
Ancient times those little-known entertainment activities
See how the ancient people fought against boredom
Push date mill
“A seven-word poem left by Qianlong unfolds a picture of an autumn day – a quiet autumn garden, a cool breeze, and a field full of red dates, all of which are of great interest.
But the imagery in this poem is also “dates” and “children”, which makes people wonder: what is it talking about?
In fact, the poem is about “children picking up dates”, a popular game in ancient times, mostly in the northern region, called “pushing the date mill”. In the popular costume drama “Knowing” some years ago, Minglan took the date mill to her grandmother’s room, and the two played happily in the dim candlelight.
“As the name implies, it is a kind of puzzle game with dates as the main prop. Its specific operation can be divided into the following three steps.
One, select three fresh dates, the fruit to large, full for the top, as for is red dates, green dates, white dates, winter dates …… you guests at will.
Two, one of the larger dates, cut off the upper half of the flesh, to reveal the tip of the nucleus, the lower side of three bamboo sticks, placed on the table as a “grinding table”.
Third, the other two dates of comparable size, respectively, in a thin bamboo string at both ends, lightly placed on the tip of the date nucleus of the mill, after obtaining balance, two people with their fingers to push it, as pushing the mill general. If the right force is applied, the dates will rotate.
Song Dynasty painter Su Hanchen’s “Autumn Court Infant Play” also shows the scene of two children playing and pushing the date mill in autumn.
In front of the rocky hill, there is a black lacquered round stool with various toys: a red stupa, a centaur wheel, a paper lattice with eight treasures, a tortoiseshell plate and a small gyro …….
But only toys, where did the people go?
It turns out that the two naive children have long been on the other side of the round pier, playing with great interest in pushing the date mill. Just see the two of them you push, I push, very involved.
The child in the red shirt, the clothes on the shoulder has slipped off half but did not know. He stretched out his little finger and couldn’t wait to push the dates: “Look at your little face, where to turn.” Another child, wearing a white robe and a little older, cautiously reached out to advise, “Hey, buddy, take it easy.”
Watching the ancient people pushing dates, are the guys really not going to do a date mill for fun?
Quail fighting
In ancient times, you may have seen the adults in the streets “chicken fight”.
Li Song, Southern Song Dynasty, “Ming Huang’s Cockfight”, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art Collection
Or you may have seen children “fighting crickets” on the grass.
If not, you can travel to Spain to see a “bullfight”.
But have you ever heard of a quail fight?
Quail, a small bird with russet feathers, is not good at flying. They are mostly found in plains, wastelands, streams and hillsides with dense weeds or undergrowth, and sometimes in the vicinity of cultivated land.
As we all know, the ancient people like to play “harmonic stalk”. When the quail is accompanied by rice, they think it represents “peace”; when the quail is accompanied by wolfberry, they think it has the meaning of “pray for peace”; the quail likes to peck at the mayfly that destroys crops, so they worship the quail as a “good luck object to eliminate disasters and prevent villains”.
Since quails are so cute, why do they need to fight them?
Ming Zhu Zhanji’s “Quail fighting” in the National Palace Museum
Quail is not cute, the emperor does not care.
Nothing to do in the afternoon, the imperial garden, RNB player Zhu Zhanji Ming Xuanzong tired of playing “chicken” “cricket” these tricks, is looking at the sky with two eyes, full of worry: “What else can play well?”
At this moment, a trio of witty guards appeared. With bird cages in hand, they offered the emperor their advice: “Oh, my dear emperor, would you like to try the latest fad of quail fighting?”
“Don’t move.” A grumpy guard slapped the fidgeting quail in his hand.
The unsettled quail was attacked once. Before it even started the game, its blood was reduced by 100.
“Oh? There are quails to play, bring them up for me to see.” Zhu Zhanji’s eyes glowed.
Before the words were out of his mouth, the guards set up the fighting ring and put the two quails in it, waiting for the emperor to give the order.
The game began, Zhu Zhanji centered in the end, eunuchs, retainers, servants served around. A quail fell, there are thousands of quails stand up. After all, what Zhu Zhanji lacks is not money, but pleasure.
Scared little quails shivered, “36 plans to go for the upper plan”.
A Ming Dynasty scrolls, let us glimpse the ancient court rare entertainment scene. Did you learn the unique “quail fighting” method?
Bullfighting
–You just said it wrong! You don’t have to go to Spain to see a bullfight!
–Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. (Isn’t this for the sake of prose?) In fact, there were bullfighting competitions as early as the Qin and Han dynasties in China.
The origins of bullfighting can be traced back to ancient religious superstitions. According to the Eastern Han dynasty’s Ying Shao’s “General Custom”, at the end of the Warring States period, there was a river god in the Min River who resembled a large bull and asked the people for two girls every year. If they did not give, the river would flood, and the people would be devastated. When Li Bing, the governor of Qin, saw this, he denounced the god’s crime and had him killed. From then on, the people were able to live and work in peace and happiness.
To commemorate this heroic bull slaughter, a bullfighting ceremony is held every year. So, what is the picture of bullfighting in ancient China?
First, you have to have a bull. (Nonsense)
Han Dynasty portrait stone
In the arena, a bullfighter with bare hands and a bull as big as a mountain are placed in a public fight.
At first, the bullfighter bows and stretches his palms, carefully circling the bull. Under gradual provocation and threat, the bull gradually becomes enraged. Just as the bull leaps up and prepares to attack, the matador makes an immortal jump and moves to the other side of the bull. While the bull was looking around, the matador grabbed the bull by the horns.
After a battle of strength and courage, the bull was completely subdued by the matador and fell to the ground, with only his struggling tail still conveying his defiance.
Han portrait stone “Bullfight” unearthed in Nanyang, Henan
The audience cheered and applauded like thunder. It was a bullfight in which all were happy, and the behemoth prostrated itself at the knees of humans. However, there have been many bullfights that ended in tragic circumstances. Even well-trained bullfighters can miss. If you are not careful, you will be killed by the bull’s merciless iron hoof and bloody mouth.
As bullfighting is sometimes too bloody and violent, please bring your own heart pills to the bullfight.
Foot race
The name “Foot Race” gives you an idea of what it’s like. But I’m really not kidding. In the Qing Dynasty, people will not only hold regular foot-tanning contest, the scene was once out of control hot!
Let’s look at a description of the plants of the novel “Yangzhou Dreams” in the Qing Dynasty: “I have been to that Uyghurst, whenever the stolen days of the festival, young women are all neatly dressed, sitting on the stone bench in front of the door. The family was proud to have their feet stroked, as if someone had said, ‘These feet are so small’.”
Han Xizai’s Night Banquet” by Gu Ma-zhong, 5th Dynasty
In Taiyuan, Shanxi, Lanzhou, Gansu, Handan, Hebei and other areas where foot-binding was prevalent, women would line up to dry their feet on both sides of the market, or lie in the car and hang their feet out of the curtain for people to watch and evaluate, and sometimes touch. Men “wandering the streets, with each other to evaluate enough for fun, a certain also thin a certain also pointed, a word of praise, glory in Huagon”.
Look at this one is proud of the way, the face is close to write a “sex” word.
The Palace Marsh Cooler” Song anonymous
In the low social status of women in feudal society, women to “foot wrapping for pride”, and the “foot small” equivalent to an identity recognition. The standard of foot binding is small, sharp, thin, soft and positive. In order to show a style at the foot race, women regardless of the pain and suffering, night and day foot wrapping, so that the bones deformation, flesh and pus.
Feudal society’s bad customs in the value distortion of the “competition”, further deepened, can be described as a vicious circle.
The masses of people who do not know why: “Editor, editor.
If there is a foot race conference, you go?”
The editor (looking at his own size 38 feet): “Shut up!”
Off puff
I remember when I was a kid, the street lottery carousel, lottery scratchers, I do not know how much pocket money “cheated” in our pockets. Always want to spend the least amount of money in exchange for the most desired things, this kind of fluke psychology, from ancient times are the same. So, the ancient people invented an ancient form of gambling – Guan Pao.
The so-called “Off Puff”, that is, the buyer and seller agreed in advance the price (generally lower than the selling price of goods), to money gambling things. The buyer can take away the item; if he loses, the seller is left with no money back.
According to “Mengliang Lu” and “Fangsheng Lu”, the small commodities of the Guangshu can be divided into the following categories.
Snacks, such as molasses cakes, bee sugar cakes, dunked lotus root, fried lotus root, new fruits, like raw flowers and fruits, red-sided patties, pig pancreas and cakes, fresh fish, pork and mutton feet and meat.
Gadgets, such as finely painted silk fans, finely colored paper fans, new kiln greenware, studded toys, chess, miscellaneous colored balls, glazed cannon lanterns, four seasonal toys; all kinds of costumes, such as pin gold skirts, satin undershirts, satin children, pin gold hats, free towels, wolf head hats, small head scarves, wiping heads, flower ring hairpin, suitcase head, pin gold hats.
Various kinds of furniture, such as inlay chairs, lacquerware, willow boxes, all kinds of rattan work, inlay drums, inlay drum stands, etc.
One of the most common ways of shutting down is “spinning the wheel and shaking the prize”. The merchant provides a round wheel with a fan-shaped division of items for sale. During the game, customers would shoot arrows and the merchant would spin the wheel. The best merchants in the Song Dynasty could “transport the wheel like flying” and customers could “shoot arrows at will”. If the customer was successful, he would receive the corresponding item on the wheel.
On the round bench in the picture of “The Infant in the Autumn Court”, there is a “centaur wheel” for children to play with, similar to the one used in the marketplace for the pouncing. It consists of a stand, a turntable and a pointer in the shape of a centaur. Toggle the wheel, when it stops, the centaur pointer will point to a different pattern.
In Tokyo during the Song Dynasty, the night was full of singing, drinking and gambling. To what extent? The Tokyo Dreams of China” said: “There is a wat to pounce on the 30 wat. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. This culture, until the Ming dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang ended with a strict ban on folk off puff.
On gambling, you can play than the old ancestors?
In the era of no network, no technology, the ancient people’s life is not as idle as we think. On the contrary, they had more opportunities to communicate and interact with each other. Just like when we were children, although there is no cell phone, but still can spend every day happily.
Perhaps when we look back today at the ancient people did not have such an advanced entertainment life, we have the mood is for childhood, or earlier that era of reminiscence.
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